


i have lost none of the data

by hollyandvice (hiasobi_writes)



Series: Holly's Round Eight H/C Bingo Card [8]
Category: Prisoners of Peace Series - Erin Bow
Genre: Dubious Consent, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 10:58:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11378790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiasobi_writes/pseuds/hollyandvice
Summary: After everything. After Michael-turned-Tanim-turned-Talis. After Sri. After FX's departure and Elián's tattoo and Renata and Daji and the rest. After everything.After everything, but before Xie. After everything, she remembers.Greta—or is she wholly Grace now?—wonders at her place in the world.





	i have lost none of the data

After everything. After Michael-turned-Tanim-turned-Talis. After Sri. After FX's departure and Elián's tattoo and Renata and Daji and the rest. After everything.

After everything, but before Xie. After everything, she remembers.

Greta closes her eyes and thinks, trying to reach for the feeling of having a people. Of loving Xie. Of having something to protect. She can feel it, there, on the edges, but it feels off. Wrong. Incomplete.

_I have lost none of the data._

She holds the words like a lifeline and tries not to be angry with Michael's choices. She knows— she _knows_ what he took from her, but she knows too that he did it to save her. She can wonder for the rest of her life (hah) at whether he needed to take everything from her to save her, but that won't change the fact that he _did_.

As they ride to Precepture Four—to Xie—Greta wonders at Michael's choice. It feels. It feels like the choice of an AI, and yet she doesn't know if she could make that choice. Does that make her less of an AI than Michael? But then, that would be sensible. Understandable. Expected. She's only recently become AI, only recently given over her mind and body rather than just her whole life in service of Talis.

She wonders, as she never has, at what she thinks of riding a Swan Rider. She stops the tensing of her hands around the saddlehorn, stops the tightening of her spine, controls her physiological reactions as she never could as a human. There's a visceral reaction to the thought of taking over a Swan Rider's mind, and she can't stop the way her AI mind knows why. A shock and a pulse and memories ripped from her organic brain and she knows that Michael thought he was saving her but she _didn't consent_ and—

Greta—or is she wholly Grace now?—swallows, a physiological reaction that she indulges in as she relives the moment. It hadn't hurt, Michael had made sure of that, but she knows that she didn't come through unchanged. She knows he took something from the core of her, from everything that she is, and she knows that she would never have consented in that condition, but what about now? Would she consent now? And what is the difference between Michael taking the why of her and her taking the freedom of a Swan Rider? Really, what's the difference between the two? The thought of riding a Swan Rider feels so repulsive, so counter to what she would have done before, to what she is willing to do now, and yet. And yet.

She glances behind her at Elián, who seems himself to be lost in thought.

And yet, for all that she can't yet imagine what it would be to take over a human's body, no matter how willing, she thinks of what Elián has already chosen to do, for her and for his own salvation, and she knows that, if it comes to that, he will be the first Swan Rider she rides. She can't help but imagine what it might be like, to melt into his consciousness and take his body as her own. It feels wrong, and strange, and foreign, and yet she can't shake the certainty that that is what she will choose should the time come. Elián has already done so much to save her; she's certain he'll be willing to do this too. Or, as certain as an AI can be, which is to say she can feel he mind running the probabilities continually in the background and coming up with the same response 93.6% of the time. Elián has come far enough to try to save her; he is likely to be willing to do the same again.

_I have lost none of the data_ , and Michael may have taken the why of her, but she may yet be able to find her way back. She has Elián and, should this mission succeed, she may still have Xie as well. She can feel the way her skin prickles in response, another physiological indulgence, and she lets herself experience it. Lets herself thrive in the feeling that courses through her veins. She may be an AI, but she is still yet a child in love, and, for as long as she can remain that way, she will. The world is still before her, and she will take advantage for as long as she is able. She has a life still to live, and though it may not be long, it will be _hers_ and that, truly, is all that she can ask.

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed. [Come hang with me on tumblr!](http://hollyandvice.tumblr.com/)


End file.
